A downhole environment such as, for example, an oil or gas well in an oilfield or undersea environment, a geothermal borehole, a carbon dioxide sequestration hole, and other such downhole environments, may expose equipment used in these environments to severe conditions of temperature, pressure, or corrosiveness. For example, equipment such as packers, blow out preventers, drilling motors, drilling bits, etc., may be exposed to downhole conditions which may affect the integrity or performance of the element and tools, and in particular, the performance of components of these tools fabricated from plastics.
Plastic components or coatings having thermal, mechanical, and barrier properties are used in downhole environments having a variety of such different and challenging conditions. These components may, however, be damaged by high temperature, corrosive or lipophilic conditions found in downhole conditions. Where the article is an element having a rubber or plastic part or coating, downhole conditions may cause, for example, swelling by uptake of hydrocarbon oil, water or brine, or other materials found in such environments. This swelling can weaken the structural integrity of the element or cause the element to have poor dimensional stability, resulting in difficulty in placing, activating, or removing the element.
Downhole plastic components and/or coatings can be formed from polymeric nanocomposites of polymers and nano-sized additives, where the combination has desirable mechanical and/or barrier properties. Uniform (homogeneous) mixing is needed during the formation of such polymer nanocomposites to avoid problematic behavior such as gellation, and therefore mixing can pose a technical challenge.